How Ben Roethlisberger turned the love of a small-market town into big bucks.

Jeffrey Trebac, owner of Peppi's restaurant in downtown Pittsburgh, had a simple and trendy idea: the "Roethlisburger," named after the Steelers' rookie quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger. "I thought I would sell a few," Trebac says. Peppi's was flipping 200 a day as the Steelers entered the playoffs in January. "We have this rookie quarterback doing things no one has ever done before, and everyone wanted a piece of him."

A rookie season in the NFL often is riddled with interceptions, fumbles and losses. Ben Roethlisberger bucked the trend, replacing an injured starter to lead the Steelers to wins in his first 14 starts, ending one game short of the Super Bowl. No NFL quarterback--veteran or rookie--had done that before.

Roethlisberger and his agents, Leigh Steinberg, Ryan Tollner and Bruce Tollner, have parlayed that hot streak into hefty cash flow. The 23-year-old, drafted 11th in the first round after getting 13 straight wins in his senior year at second-tier Miami University of Ohio, started at an unremarkable base salary of $230,000. But he earned $4.5 million in endorsements, an unheard-of sum for an NFL rookie. Even more surprising, the bulk of it came not from national contracts but from local deals in a city that fell for him especially hard.

The Steel City Savior, as the local press crowned him, raked it in by autographing thousands of helmets, balls and the like; and by lending his name to local brands and making public appearances. "It's always been a misnomer that going to a big-market team is the gateway to endorsement riches," says Steinberg. "The reality is that an excited, moderately sized town can drive a lot of commerce."

But now they hope to take Roethlisberger national and strike multimillion-dollar deals with some of the biggest brands around. It is an especially elusive quest for a pro football player. Basketball stars à la MichaelJordan and tennis greats such as Andre Agassi get the biggest deals. Footballers, hidden inside a helmet and playing a team sport popular mainly in the U.S., rarely break through.

"A lot of things motivate me," Roethlisberger says. "I want to be the best quarterback ever, and I want to make money." His first-year earnings hit $16 million, thanks to a $9.1 million signing bonus and $2.3 million in incentives. If he catches on nationwide, he could earn far more.

Roethlisberger grew up in Findlay, Ohio, a blue-collar town 260 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. He had hoped to go toOhio State but was all but ignored by the Buckeyes, ending up at Miami of Ohio, a piker by comparison. One of his first national endorsements came even before he was drafted by the Steelers, and it turned out to be a steal for the sponsor:Nike reportedly paid him $450,000 for three years. Those terms stand even though the quarterback became an overnight star. They even require him to appear in a few TV ads at no extra pay.

After Roethlisberger was chosen by the small-market Steelers, "I came in hoping I would be the backup and not the third-stringer," he says. Before the season began, he did a few corporate "meet-and-greets" for $6,000 an hour. He signed pieces of memorabilia for $10 a pop. It looked like he would spend the season waiting his turn on-field and off. That all changed in the second game of the season when the Steelers' starter, Tommy Maddox, went down with an elbow injury, forcing Roethlisberger into the starting role. Maddox recovered seven weeks later but never won back his job--Big Ben was on fire. He threw 11 touchdown passes in his first seven games.

Pittsburgh was primed for a new sports star. The baseball Pirates had been miserable for years, and hockey's Penguins had been idled by the NHL lockout. And Roethlisberger seemed especially down-to-earth and approachable. "For Pittsburghers, it was that Mean Joe Greene Coca-Cola moment, the belief that you could run into Ben on the street and have a conversation," says Paul Swangard of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.

As the Steelers won, their quarterback's fame exploded. "Ben was the biggest phenomenon I've ever seen here," says Myron Cope, a Steelers radio broadcaster for 35 years. Knockoff peddlers flooded the streets with hundreds of illegal Roethlisberger T shirts, ski caps and other paraphernalia, and the FBI was called in for a crackdown. (No action was taken against Peppi's for the unauthorized Roethlisburger. "Stopping that would have been a p.r. nightmare," Tollner says.)

Stock quotes are delayed at least 15 minutes for Nasdaq, at least 20 minutes for NYSE/AMEX.
U.S. indexes are delayed at least 15 minutes with the exception of Nasdaq, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 which are 2 minutes delayed.